Mobutu Ends Zaire's One-Party System

By KENNETH B. NOBLE, Special to The New York Times

Published: April 25, 1990

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, April 24—
Bowing to rising demands for social and political change, President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire said today that he was lifting a 20-year ban on opposition parties, opening the possibility of a multiparty government.

The moves were disclosed in a package of sweeping changes that Mr. Mobutu announced in a radio broadcast monitored here.

Mr. Mobutu said opposition parties are to be legalized, with three being allowed initially. He announced that the Constitution will be rewritten and that a transitional government will be set up to run the country until elections are held next April. The President said he would name a new Prime Minister in the next few days.

The plan also opened the way for a popularly elected chief executive, although Mr. Mobutu said he will remain head of state for the time being because the Zairian people ''want me to continue to oversee the destiny of the country.''

Witnesses said the speech sent thousands of citizens racing jubilantly into the downtown streets of Kinshasa, the capital, singing and waving branches and blocking streets to cheer the President.

Compulsory Party Membership

Mr. Mobutu has wielded nearly absolute power in the sprawling Central African country since taking power in November 1965. Since 1970 every citizen of Zaire has been required to be a member of the ruling party, the Popular Movement for the Revolution.

Mr. Mobutu announced today, however, that he was ending the party's monopoly on political power and that he would no longer be its leader.

Despite the initial enthusiasm for Mr. Mobutu's move, it is clear that he retains the decision-making power. Some critics said the real test will be whether Mr. Mobutu agrees to hand over power to elected lawmakers and accept a more limited role under a new constitution. Another crucial question is how easily the party's vast, entrenched bureaucracy might yield its control over jobs in all major institutions in all parts of the country.

It was also unclear which parties will compete for power beside the ruling party. Several already exist clandestinely, including the Council for the Liberation of the Congo, the Workers and Peasants Party, and the Union for Democracy and Social Progress.

The latter, led by a former dissident Cabinet member, Tshisekedi wa Mulumba, has been active in recent anti-Government demonstrations. In recent years, Mr. Tshisekedi has been arrested nearly a dozen times, sent into internal exile in an isolated region of the country, and of late held under house arrest in Kinshasa.

Exiles Are Welcomed

But at a news conference today, Mr. Mobutu announced that Mr. Tshisekedi had been released and that other dissidents were now free to engage in political activities.

Mamadi Diane, a Washington lobbyist for Zaire, who was in Kinshasa to attend today's speech, added that political dissidents who had fled the country during Mr. Mobutu's rule would now be welcomed if they returned.

''Today any Zairian who has been outside of Zaire for political reasons can come back,'' Mr. Diane said in a telephone interview.

But some Zairians, while applauding the tenor of the Mr. Mobutu's speech, said they were apprehensive about how genuine his commitment to the democratic process might be.

''It's a good start,'' Ebua Lihau, a former Chief Justice of the Zairian Supreme Court, said in a telephone interview from New York. ''But it's a victory in a battle. It's not a total victory in the war.''

Mr. Ebua said it was unfortunate that Mr. Mobutu's plan was issued by presidential fiat.

''We don't like the idea of Mobutu deciding by himself the future of the country,'' Mr. Ebua said.

Makau Matua, director of the Africa Project for the Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights, said his group ''treats this announcement with a lot of skepticism.''

He added: ''The security forces and the army remain intact, and they're the one's who've been involved in massive violations of human rights, and that's a central problem.''